d take care of the duck."

"All alone?" said my mother.

"No. All alone! Why, Uncle Jack will come here as often as ever, I
hope."

Uncle Jack shook his head.

"No, my boy, I must go to town with your father. You don't understand
these things. I shall see the booksellers for him. I know how these
gentlemen are to be dealt with. I shall prepare the literary circles for
the appearance of the book. In short, it is a sacrifice of interest,
I know; my Journal will suffer. But friendship and my country's good
before all things."

"Dear Jack!" said my mother, affectionately.

"I cannot suffer it," cried my father. "You are making a good
income. You are doing well where you are, and as to seeing the
booksellers,--why, when the work is ready, you can come to town for a
week, and settle that affair."

"Poor dear Austin," said Uncle Jack, with an air of superiority and
compassion. "A week! Sir, the advent of a book that is to succeed
requires the preparation of months. Pshaw! I am no genius, but I am a
practical man. I know what's what. Leave me alone."

But my father continued obstinate, and Uncle Jack at last ceased to
urge the matter. The journey to fame and London was now settled, but my
father would not hear of my staying behind.

No, Pisistratus must needs go also to town and see the world; the duck
would take care of itself.

CHAPTER IV.

We had taken the precaution to send, the day before, to secure our due
complement of places--four in all, including one for Mrs. Primmins--in,
or upon, the fast family coach called the "Sun," which had lately been
set up for the special convenience of the neighborhood.

This luminary, rising in a town about seven miles distant from us,
described at first a very erratic orbit amidst the contiguous villages
before it finally struck into the high-road of enlightenment, and thence
performed its journey, in the full eyes of man, at the majestic pace of
six miles and a half an hour. My father with his pockets full of books,
and a quarto of "Gebelin on the Primitive World," for light reading,
under his arm; my mother with a little basket containing sandwiches, and
biscuits of her own baking; Mrs. Primmins, with a new umbrella purchased
for the occasion, and a bird-cage containing a canary endeared to
her not more by song than age and a severe pip through which she had
successfully nursed it; and I myself,--waited at the gates to welcome
the celestial visitor. The gardener, w